Sterner than Steel
by LOTR-nutcase
Summary: A one-shot. Eowyn's POV while being healed in HOH.


Author: This is a one-shot (probably. I may decide to make it longer), so I most likely won't update. Review anyway! 

Disclaimer: All names, places, and miscellaneous items relating to Middle-Earth, The Lord of the Rings or other writings of JRR Tolkien's are the property of the Tolkien Estate and New Line Cinema. Not mine. Wish they were…

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_Eomer is slain._

No! He cannot be dead. He is all that I have left…

            _He has fallen. Minas Tirith has fallen. Middle-Earth will be covered in the same darkness you now fight. Do not struggle! Let it take you…_

You are a shade of evil, I will not believe you. Let me die in peace!

The black mist sweeps across my face. Cold…so cold! Is this death, then? I try to see, but there is only darkness, an empty, endless landscape of despair. 

Despair—it is familiar to me. I have known naught else for many years. I looked for escape in an honorable death…did I find it? Have I passed to the halls of the next world? Surely I am not so unworthy as to be doomed to this for eternity!

A chill wind blows. The voice whispers again.

_Eowyn…your house is no more than a barn for livestock. Théoden was a dotard, and now he is dead. Eomer is dead. Aragorn pitied you; he lies mortally wounded. Meriadoc has been taken. You will wander this darkness forever, alone. _

Tears course down my face. No! I cry. But no one answers. I am alone….forever alone.

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What was that? A touch of warmth upon my brow! I look up, but there is only darkness still. I hear the hissing of evil for a moment, and then it stops. A kind voice speaks!

_"Eowyn, Eomund's daughter, awake! For your enemy has passed away!"_

I strain towards the voice, but I cannot move. Frustrated tears fall.__

Then the stench of emptiness begins to recede. There is a rush of clean air. Can it be? The black mist falls away slowly. My icy hand is enveloped in warmth.

_"Awake, Eowyn, Lady of Rohan! Awake! The shadow is gone and all darkness is washed clean!"_

It is a familiar voice, but it holds no love for me. I shrink from it. To follow would mean life. Life is pain. With my family dead and my household steeped in shame, what is there to live for?

 _"Eowyn, Eowyn!"_ A different voice cries. It sounds pained, as though it is weeping. Why…

Eomer! Eomer is alive! He calls me! I push the last of the mist from my limbs and mind and open my eyes to the light.

There is pain. I cannot move my left arm. But Eomer is there! Eomer, my beloved brother, is looking into my face, tears glistening on his cheeks. Can it be that the empty blackness was naught but an evil dream?

"Eomer! What joy is this? For they said that you were slain. Nay, but that was only the dark voices in my dream. How long have I been dreaming?" I cannot look away from Eomer's face. He lives!

"Not long, my sister," he says "But think no more on it!"

 "I am strangely weary, I must rest a little." I begin, but then I remember my dear Uncle. "But tell me, what of the Lord of the Mark? Alas! Do not tell me that that was dream; for I know that it was not. He is dead as he foresaw." My heart aches for the loss of the one who was like a father to me. But he passed with valor and renown.

 "He is dead," Admits my brother, "But he bade me say farewell to Eowyn, dearer than daughter. He lies now in great honor in the Citadel of Gondor."

A touch of the pain in my heart eases, knowing that the King remembered me on his deathbed. "That is grievous," I say "And yet it is good beyond all that I dared hope in the dark days, when it seemed that the House of Eorl was sunk in honor less than any shepherd's cot. And what of the king's esquire?" I remember Merry. Merry! Without him I would surely have been killed. What if he has truly died? "The Halfling? Eomer, you shall make him a knight of the Riddermark, for he is valiant!" I grip my brother's hand tighter.

 "He lies nearby in this House, and I will go to him," I realize that I am not alone with Eomer. It is Gandalf. Ever he appears where needed, yet I know it was not he who first called me back to the light. "Eomer shall stay for a while. But do not speak yet of war or woe, until you are made whole again. Great gladness it is to see you wake again to health and hope, so valiant a lady!" I can hear the smile in Gandalf's voice, but it does not warm me.

"To health?" My body seems healed, but my heart is not. Ever a shadow will dwell there, and only death will escape it. "It may be so. At least while there is an empty saddle of some fallen Rider that I can fill, and there are deeds to do. But to hope?" I sink back into sadness, for the world will never hold joy for me, I fear. "I do not know."

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